


Christmas Gifts

by pooh_collector



Category: White Collar
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pooh_collector/pseuds/pooh_collector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mozzie is an enigma, wrapped in Christmas paper and tied up with a bow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Gifts

Diana heard her doorbell ring. She had her hands full, literally as she changed Theo for the trip down to Washington DC to visit her parents for the holiday. They needed to leave for the station in 45 minutes and Diana was nowhere near ready. 

Before Theo she had never been late, never forgot anything; she was never disorganized. But Theo was a 15 pound bundle of chaos turning her life completely around. Most days Diana knew it was for the better, she couldn’t imagine her life without him anymore, even though he had only been in it for six months. But today, she would have given almost anything to be the centered and together woman she used to be. 

The doorbell rang a second time and Diana cursed under her breath, picked up her mostly-dressed son, the straps on his overalls still unsecured, and headed out to give whoever was bothering her when she was in a hurry a piece of her mind. 

All she saw through the peephole on her door was a pale, bald pate. Mozzie, with his back turned toward her. She shook her head, amused. Of course Moz would show up at her apartment just when she needed every moment to get out the door on time. But, she couldn’t turn him away. 

He spun around to face her as she opened the door. He looked nervous, though that was nothing unusual. He was wearing a red cardigan sweater, which looked vaguely festive and he was carrying a brown paper grocery sack. 

“Moz.”

“Lady Suit.”

“I don’t have much time. Theo and I need to catch a train. But you can come in for a minute.”

Mozzie nodded and stepped into her apartment. As he did so, Theo turned in his mother’s embrace and held his arms out toward his eccentric uncle. Moz placed the bag very gently on the floor and with a nod from Diana reached out and took his namesake from her grasp. 

Theo smiled at Moz and Mozzie smiled back, genuinely. In the months since Diana had become a mother, Mozzie had become an uncle in much more than unofficial name only. Diana would have never, not in a million years, guessed that Mozzie would take so well to her son, or that Theo would love the strange little man as much as he seemed to. 

“Can you finish dressing him while I finish getting us ready to go to the station?”

“Of course,” Moz replied as he made his way over to the sofa in Diana's small living room. 

Diana watched them sit, Mozzie on the couch and Theo propped in his lap and then she went back into her bedroom to get a few final things packed.

When she came back into the living room Theo was fully dressed sitting in rapt attention as Mozzie relayed some tale about alien ships and Area 52. She smiled at his comical account as she set her suitcases down by the door next to the plain, brown bag that Mozzie had brought. 

“What’s this?” She asked. 

Mozzie’s smile went flat and he suddenly seemed a little anxious. “It’s a gift for Theo.” He said quietly.

Diana picked up the bag and brought it over to the sofa. “May I?” She requested as she sat down next to them.

Mozzie nodded. 

Inside the bag, Diana found an unusually shaped package. The wrapping looked old, the colors slightly faded. It was decorated with scenes from the original, stop action Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer television special set on a silvery blue background. 

Normally Diana didn’t care much about the wrapping, she would shred it in her effort to efficiently get at the gift inside, but Diana decided that the paper might be significant in its own way. So she carefully pulled the pieces of tape away from the edges and then gently folded the paper away from Theo’s gift.

What she revealed was a careworn, russet colored teddy bear. One of its original eyes had been replaced at some point with a much larger button, the ribbon around its neck was faded and slightly frayed at the ends, the curls in its fur had flattened with time.

As she looked down at the gift, a memory surfaced. An inconspicuous hotel room, a bed empty expect for a set of pajamas, a melon wearing glasses and… a teddy bear.

Diana suddenly knew, with her newly developed maternal instinct, the significance of this gift. She looked over at Mozzie, noticing the wet gleam in his eyes. “Moz, are you sure?” She asked gently.

He nodded without hesitation. Then he looked away from her and said “’You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.’” 

Suddenly, Diana felt tears welling in her own eyes. She blinked rapidly to clear them and then gently picked up the bear. 

When Theo caught sight of what his mother held, he smiled broadly, then giggled and held out his pudgy baby arms. She handed the bear over to her son and then sat back on the sofa and took in the sight before her.

Theo clinging tightly to a gift of love given by an odd little man who sat holding her son carefully in his own arms. Mozzie was a gift she never expected, but that she was somehow endlessly grateful to have received. 

 

A/N: Mozzie's quote is either from Victor Hugo or Robert Louis Stevenson depending on where you look.


End file.
